SAN FRANCISCO / Taiwan dispute begets new suit by Six Companies' faction

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, June 17, 2004

Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf

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Event on 6/16/04 in San Francisco.
Lok Kwan in his office in San Francisco on Folsom St. He is one of the plaintiffs in a suit against the venerable Chinese Six Companies.
Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle

Event on 6/16/04 in San Francisco.
Lok Kwan in his office in San Francisco on Folsom St. He is one of the plaintiffs in a suit against the venerable Chinese Six Companies.
Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle

Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf

SAN FRANCISCO / Taiwan dispute begets new suit by Six Companies' faction

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The bitter political fight at the oldest and most influential organization in San Francisco's Chinatown escalated Wednesday with the filing of a lawsuit challenging the group's long ties to Taiwan.

The lawsuit contests the Six Companies' traditional inaugural ceremony in which the organization's elected president must pledge allegiance to Taiwan and sing its national anthem.

The lawsuit filed by two of the seven regional associations that make up the Six Companies is the latest development in a deepening rift between factions supporting the Taiwanese nationalists and the mainland Chinese government.

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For decades the Six Companies was dominated by the pro-Taiwan associations, but in recent years support for mainland China has grown, fueling the dispute.

On May 29, the board voted 25-21 to enforce the traditional ceremony after three board members sued Daniel Hom in March because he refused to participate in the group's ritual demonstration of support for Taiwan. A San Francisco judge dismissed the lawsuit last month, saying the matter could best be settled within Six Companies.

The board's latest resolution would block the Six Companies presidency of Lok C. Kwan, the head of the pro-China Sam Yup association, who also refuses to partake in the ritual. Kwan, a San Francisco structural engineer, is scheduled to assume the presidency in July. The presidency rotates among the 55-member board of directors every two months.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that the board resolution lacked the two-thirds majority vote required by the group's bylaws for "important matters. " Bill Wong, the current Six Companies president, said the resolution did not involve important matters and thus did not require a two-thirds majority vote, the suit claims.

Wong declined to comment, saying he had not yet seen the suit as of Wednesday afternoon.

The plaintiffs are also seeking a hearing Monday to show cause for an injunction against the resolution. Kwan said that if the Six Companies board had passed the resolution with a two-thirds vote, his association would not have protested.

As a compromise, he would allow others to sing Taiwan's anthem and salute the flag during the inauguration -- as long as he could step outside during that portion of the ceremony.

It was the second time that the board had voted to enforce the rituals. The resolution was previously passed 24-3 in February -- after a walkout of several board members.

"I think it's very clear: When the board passes a resolution, the directors have to follow their duty," said Pak C. Law, a board member who voted in favor of the resolution and was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against Hom.

Hom, a San Francisco retired structural engineer, contends that California government officials should preside over the Six Companies inaugural ceremony and that the group should pledge allegiance only to the United States.

He held his inauguration at a Chinese restaurant rather than at the headquarters and sang both the Chinese and American anthems, and he invited the Chinese Consul General as a guest.

Hom completed his two-month presidential term at the end of April -- without ever being able to assemble a quorum at the regular monthly meetings.

His break with tradition set off months of turmoil in the Chinese American community.

"It's like the Catholics and Protestants, the Democrats and Republicans - - you're dead set in what you believe, and there's no changing your mind," said Henry Low, a board member.

Founded in 1862 to assist Chinese arriving in San Francisco, the Six Companies has long maintained close ties with Taiwan's Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang. The Six Companies consists of seven Chinatown benevolent associations whose members hail from different districts in southern China.

In 1949, China's Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan and ruled in exile after its defeat by the communists in the country's civil war. For decades, the Nationalist government on Taiwan courted Chinese living abroad, seeking their support and representing itself as "free China."

Chinese Americans who supported the government on the mainland were branded as communist sympathizers.

Board member Harrison Lim said he was suspicious that the associations that seek to cut the connection with Taiwan were pushing for support for China.

"I don't like communism -- that's why my family fled from Red China to Hong Kong to this country," said Lim, director of Charity Cultural Services in San Francisco's Chinatown.

The Yeong Wo and Sam Yup associations recognize the government in Beijing as the representative government of China, "in accordance with the foreign policy of the United States government, the United Nations and the vast majority of the Chinese American population," the lawsuit states.

Ling Chi Wang, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, blasted the Six Companies, saying the lawsuits reflected the group's "self-obsolescence and irrelevancy." The Six Companies should modernize to help Chinese Americans -- their original purpose, he said.